1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication terminal that performs a participation setup process of causing a wireless communication terminal that is not participating in a wireless network to participate in the wireless network.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2011-174896, filed Aug. 10, 2011, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
All patents, patent applications, patent publications, scientific articles, and the like, which will hereinafter be cited or identified in the present application, will hereby be incorporated by reference in their entirety in order to describe more fully the state of the art to which the present invention pertains.
In the past, in wireless communication terminals with a wireless local area network (LAN) function, it was necessary to set various information (network setting information) such as a network ID (SSID), an authentication scheme, an encryption scheme, and an encryption key in order to participate in a network (an infrastructure network) provided by an access point (hereinafter referred to as “AP”). Further, it was necessary to input various settings on the wireless communication terminal in order to perform the setting. Since inputting the setting was complicated, it was not easy, in particular, for a user who was less attuned to a wireless LAN technique to perform the setting.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, as an industry standard technique of a wireless LAN for causing a wireless communication terminal to participate in an infrastructure network through a simple setting process of network setting information (“participation setup process”), Wi-Fi Protected Setup (TM) (hereinafter referred to as “WPS”) is performed, and Wi-Fi Simple Configuration Specification v2.0.0 has been disclosed as the technical specification.
Several setup methods are specified in WPS. For example, in a first setup method (hereinafter referred to as a “push button configuration (PBC) method”), a participation setup process is performed such that a user pushes an actual button, or a button on a screen using a GUI function (a graphical user interface function) in each of a non-participating wireless communication terminal that has a wireless LAN function and tries to participate in a network and a wireless communication terminal (mostly AP) that is already participating in the network, and a fixed value defined in WPS is used in both wireless communication terminals as identification information for the participation setup process. Further, in a second setup method (hereinafter referred to as a “personal identification number (PIN) method”), the participation setup process is performed such that a non-participating wireless communication terminal inputs a PIN code generated as an arbitrary value and displayed on a screen to a participating wireless communication terminal (mostly AP) as identification information for the participation setup process.
By performing the participation setup process through these setup methods, the network setting information held in the AP can be safely transferred to the wireless communication terminal. After the transfer of the network setting information by WPS is completed, the user need not perform a burdensome task such as an input of the encryption key or the like. The wireless communication terminal can set the transferred network setting information, execute an authentication process with the AP as necessary, and perform data communication with the AP. Further, the PIN code may be input to the AP using a browser from another terminal in a network to which the AP belongs.
In recent years, an ad-hoc mode that allows the wireless communication terminals to directly perform wireless LAN communication, unlike an infrastructure mode needing an AP, has started to be widely used in portable terminals such as game machines and cameras. In the ad-hoc mode, there is no terminal that becomes central in a network like an AP in the infrastructure mode, and each terminal performs communication on an equal level.
Even in the ad-hoc mode, it is complicated to set the network setting information like the infrastructure mode. However, it is desirable to allow a conventional WPS to be performed in an ad-hoc network. At this time, since there is no terminal that functions to manage a network like the AP in the infrastructure mode in the ad-hoc mode, for example, in the PBC method, when a button is pushed on any one of participating wireless communication terminals, the participation setup process with a non-participating wireless communication terminal can be performed.
FIGS. 20A to 20C and FIGS. 21A to 21C illustrate an example of causing a plurality of non-participating terminals to participate in the ad-hoc network by the PBC method of WPS in a state in which there are a plurality of wireless communication terminals which are participating in the existing ad-hoc network. As illustrated in FIG. 20A, wireless communication terminals 130 and 131 are already participating in an ad-hoc network 180, and wireless communication terminals 132 and 133 are not yet participating in the ad-hoc network 180.
In order to cause the plurality of non-participating wireless communication terminals to participate in the ad-hoc network by the PBC method, a user pushes buttons on any one participating wireless communication terminal 130 and one non-participating wireless communication terminal 132 desired to firstly participate (FIG. 20A), so that the participation setup process is executed between the wireless communication terminals (FIG. 20B). When the participation setup process is completed, the non-participating wireless communication terminal 132 becomes a wireless communication terminal that is participating in the ad-hoc network 180 because the participation setup process has been performed (FIG. 20C).
After visually confirming completion of the participation setup process, the user subsequently pushes buttons on any one participating wireless communication terminal 130 and one wireless communication terminal 133 desired to participate next (FIG. 21A). In FIG. 21A, although the button is pushed down on the participating wireless communication terminal 130, which is the participating wireless communication terminal whose button was pushed down in the previous participation setup process, the button may be pushed down in any other wireless communication terminal that is participating. The participation setup process is executed between the wireless communication terminals whose buttons are pushed down (FIG. 21B). When the participation setup process is completed, the wireless communication terminal 133 that was not participating becomes a wireless communication terminal that is participating in the ad-hoc network 180 because the participation setup process has been performed (FIG. 21C). In this way, a plurality of non-participating wireless communication terminals can participate in the existing ad-hoc network.
The participation setup process of WPS requires an exchange of various messages and a complicated calculation during processing. Thus, it may take tens of seconds to complete the participation setup process if it is long. In the above described procedure, the user visually confirms completion of the participation setup process and then pushes the button down again, and thus the time the user is constrained to push the button down is long. In addition, time is taken until participation of all the non-participating wireless communication terminals is completed.
In addition, as illustrated in FIGS. 22A to 22D, when buttons are pushed down in both wireless communication terminals (FIG. 22A), buttons may be pushed down in the participating wireless communication terminal 131 and the non-participating wireless communication terminal 133 (FIG. 22B), which are different from the participating wireless communication terminal 130 and the non-participating wireless communication terminal 132 whose buttons are first pushed down, without waiting for completion of the participation setup process. In this case, the non-participating wireless communication terminal 133 detects a plurality of participating wireless communication terminals whose buttons have been pushed down (FIG. 22C). However, it is difficult for the non-participating wireless communication terminal 133 to determine which participating wireless communication terminal will perform the participation setup process together with itself from among the participating wireless communication terminals whose buttons have been pushed down. Thus, an error representing that a plurality of wireless communication terminals have been detected in WPS occurs (FIG. 22D).